Leaders Support Materials HE 4-970

Transcription

1 Leaders Support Materials HE 4-970

2 Laughter and Humor Quotes When humor goes, there goes civilization Laughing is the sensation of feeling good all over. Erma Bombeck Josh Billings A happy heart makes the face cheerful, But heartache crushes the spirit. Proverbs 15:3 A cheerful heart is good medicine, But a crushed spirit dries up the bones. Proverbs 17:22 Let the surgeon take care to regulate the whole regimen of the patient s life for joy and happiness, allowing his relatives and special friends to cheer him and by having someone tell him jokes. A French surgeon And frame your mind to mirth and merriment, which bars a thousand harms and lengthens life. William Shakespeare, Taming of the Shrew He who laughs, lasts! Anonymous Joy, temperance and repose, Slam the door on the doctor s nose. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Laughter is a primitive communication tool common to all societies. Bergson Laughter is the shortest distance between two people. Victor Borge When people are laughing, they re generally are not killing one another. Alan Alda

3 The whole art of life is knowing how to transform anxiety into laughter. Alan Watts You can t help getting older, but you can help getting old. Chronologically, the clock is going to keep on ticking for all of us, but if we take a lick of humor, we can prevent a hardening of the attitudes. If we savor humor, humor can be a lifesaver. George Burns There is something about sharing a laugh with someone. It always makes you feel better. Anne Wilson Schaef The arrival of a good clown exercises more beneficial influence on the health of a town than 20 asses laden with drugs. Thomas Sydenham, 17 th -century physician

4 Activities for a Shot of Good Humor! 1. Do you have a piece of furniture that you really don t like? A neighbor that is driving you crazy? A job (or household task) you d love to give to someone else? Write an absurd ad that makes the neighbor or furniture or job sound really great and then compare ads with the other members of the group. 2. Play a game such as Dictionary. You will need one dictionary and enough paper and pencils for each person. Taking turns, one person looks up a word that no one in the group knows. Each person has to make up a definition for the word and write it on her or his paper. The person with the dictionary writes down one correct definition. Everyone hands his or her definition to the lead person. That person reads each definition, and each group member votes on the correct definition. The person who fools the most people is the winner. 3. Buy a bunch of balloons that are easy to blow up. Give every member of the group a balloon and have a race to blow them up. As group leader, note who finishes when. The first person finished gets to ask another person to do something silly and so on through the group. How do you act like a cat? Or a turkey? Or a frog? 4. Make some Prescriptions for Humor. Use candies for pills. Put them in a bag or bottle with the appropriate labels. Create your own labels, or use some of these. Cold Tablets for hot flashes Assorted Seasonings Pills when you need a little spice in your life Vacation Pills for the one who can t get away Grandmother Pills for when you are pooped. Happy Pills sure cure for grouchers! Diet Pills for a slender you Helium Pills for a lift... or use the next page to cut out a prescription to attach to a bag or bottle of pills.

5 Prescription: Realize that a sense of humor is deeper than laughter and more satisfactory than comedy and delivers greater rewards than merely being entertaining A sense of humor sees the fun in everyday experiences. It is more important to have fun than to be funny. Prescription: Take yourself lightly, Take your job and your responsibility to yourself and to others seriously. You will discover that this will make life s anxieties and burdens lighter. Prescription: Laugh at yourself, not in ridicule but with objectivity and acceptance of self. Prescription: Spend time with a child to rediscover your sense of delight. Don t be afraid to be silly. Participate in laughter and enjoyment. Prescription: Make a joy list Whenever you experience something that makes you feel good, jot it down in a notebook. Then, if you feel like complaining, read over the list. You ll feel better.

6 Types of Humor Parody. Parody imitates something or someone for comical effect. We use parody to laugh at our own shortcomings. Roasts are examples of parodies. Satire. Satire is similar to parody but more often is about personal or social flaws. Personal, political, and cultural quirks are exaggerated for humorous effect. Examples of American humorists known for their satire are Art Buchwald, Erma Bombeck, and Dave Barry. Slapstick comedy. The use of physical farce in vaudeville is typical of slapstick. Slipping on a banana peel, taking a pie in the face, and fake face slaps produce laughs. Examples are the Marx Brothers, Laurel and Hardy, the Three Stooges, and Lucille Ball. Absurd/nonsense humor. Absurd humor places extremely dissimilar concepts together, resulting in ridiculous images. It diverts attention from daily stressors. It makes one realize that life shouldn t be taken too seriously. Examples are Gary Larson s Far Side cartoons, showing cows driving cars or sharks wearing horn-rimmed glasses. Black or dark humor. Black humor is a way to poke fun at a common human fear, the fear of death. The television series M*A*S*H expressed some black humor. It can also be found on gravestone epitaphs: John Strange Here lies an honest lawyer. This is Strange. William Reese This is what I expected, but not so soon. Dorothy Parker Pardon my dust. Irony. Two concepts or events, when paired together, result in an unexpected outcome. Irony is seen in this bumper sticker: My other car is a broom. An example of irony is buying a super-size order of fries with a Diet Coke. Dry humor and puns. Puns center on a word with more than one meaning. Puns, also called plays on words, tend to border on the silly or inane. It may take effort to laugh at puns; other types of humor provoke more spontaneity. Humorists who used dry humor include Mark Twain, Will Rogers, Groucho Marx, Winston Churchill, and Garrison Keillor. Sarcasm. Sarcasm comes from a Greek word meaning to tear flesh. Some use this form of humor instead of physical aggression, but words can hurt as much, if not more! Late-night television show hosts use a lot of sarcasm, especially in their opening monologs. From Wells, Ken R. Humor therapy. In Gale Encyclopedia of Alternative Medicine, January 1, 1995, pp